By Andrew L. Jaffee

Today, Hungarians commemorated their 1956 revolution against Soviet occupation. 1956 was a real revolution, and between 2,800 to 30,000 Hungarians gave their lives in the pursuit of liberty and sovereignty, two words which have lost meaning to some in the free world. It is with a sad heart, but with joyous spirit that I salute Hungary today. (Story continues below)

Liberty. Sovereignty. Revolution.

These words are bandied about often nowadays in the West, but many times with little meaning, especially by the Left. For example, we constantly hear about Palestinian “sovereignty” — over land which at best they can claim only partial historical ties to — while Palestinian terrorists are readily forgiven for the most horrendous acts, and Palestinian leaders steal foreign aid monies. All in the name of “liberty?”

Liberty is taken for granted by throngs of Westerners who have known nothing else. While it is good that entire generations could have grown up knowing only freedom, our own largesse has allowed some in those same generations to forget how valuable freedom is. Be it middle-class suburban kids who shoot up high schools because they feel left out; be it poor inner city kids who shoot each other up because they’ve been raised to believe in everything except their own self worth (”its always someone else’s fault, never your own”); the sad fact is that many of these people do not and will not ever know how an election works, or what it was like to live in the Soviet Union.

The word revolution is generally reserved to Lenin overthrowing the czar or Castro toppling Batista. Rarely is a popular Iranian “revolution” against the ruling Islamo-fascists, or the overthrow of China’s communist (and now capitalist) rulers, the topic of conversation of fashionable cocktail parties.

You would think that guys like George Clooney — martini in hand — have to at least wonder about a Chinese government that calls itself “communist” running a stock exchange and doing business with Ford, GM, Google — all the Great Satans of the world. Castro’s gotten worse than Woody Allen’s parody of the bearded, cigar-smoking, one — remember that Woody’s version orders everyone to wear their underpants on the outside, and levies an immediate decree that all fifteen year olds are now sixteen (Bananas, 1971)! Well, c’mon, Castro, who executes and imprisons dissidents, and whose populace is on the verge of starvation, is only doing it because the Americans made him. Yeah, brother (fist lifted upwards in solidarity)!

The talk, if political, is generally focused on those “evil” Israelis or on strange conspiracy theories about George Bush planning an uber oil pipeline through the Middle East. (Story continues below)

When was the last time you heard a Hollywood elite make a movie, let alone a public statement, about Hungary’s struggle to throw the Russians out once and for all? All of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and indigenous Siberian tribes lived through 70 years of the legacy of Soviet “revolution” — which did nothing but replace one form of czar with another (”Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet”). How many million died because of the Soviet “revolution?” 20, 30, 60 million?

Hungarians today are commemorating a true fight for liberty against an Orwellian dictatorship. They fought and died — which is a lot more than I can say for those Hollywood liberals sipping cocktails and indulging in anti-Semitism to assuage their white guilt.

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Related: Europe, Communism / Socialism, Philosophy / Ideology

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